The Bevrijdingspop festival started at 12:00 o'clock this afternoon. In the Kruisstraat, the street next to my work, there is a constant stream of people coming from Centraal Station to the park where the festival is.

I was going with Hugo, a colleague, for a cup of coffee and took a picture.

Today is May 5th, which marks the liberation of the Netherlands at the end of World War II. The celebrations today follow the national remembrance day (May 4th) when the people are commemorated who have fallen in the war and other wars. Yesterday I went to the ceremony at the Dreef in Haarlem.

I always enjoy today, it's a great idea to be able to celebrate freedom. The national flag is out on official buildings, I took some pictures on my way to work.

This afternoon I gave a presentation about my graduation project. There were about 15 colleague's.

It was very nice to tell about the things I've researched and found out, but also difficult. How to describe six months work in 45 minutes? I think it went quite well.

For those of you interested I've made the sheets of the presentation available online.

We received a card from Spain today. My mother and my grandmother are on a holiday at Gran Canaria, a Spanish island 100km from the coast of Morocco. They are having a good time, the weather is pleasant and there's a lot of nice food.

At work I heard some very nice news for two friends.

Tomorrow I'll give a presentation at Chess about my graduation project: A Survey of Co-Design Ideas and Methodologies. It was nice to reread the paper again; I hadn't looked at it for a couple of months.

I'm reading an interesting on-line article on the German grammar, written for English-speakers. The introductionary chapter explains a lot of language theory, which is quite useful. It describes the eight possible functions of a word (such as case, gender, voice, mood etc.) and how the function of a word is indicated ('signalled') in English and German.

Compound nouns:

"Germans (like English speakers) connect nouns together to form compound nouns. Examples in English are streetcar, airport, and flowerpot. Germans seem to get carried away with the concept. They keep sticking nouns together until at times they come up with humongous verbal edifices."

I had an easy day today.

After a very nice dinner I'm now watching the finals of Idols. This year I haven't been watching the shows, but yes, I guess Maud would be my favourite.

I received a Teilnahmebescheinigung for the Zaterduitsdag I did last week. Nice gesture.

And of course, today is May 1st: the official expansion of the European Union with ten new member states. It's a great idea Europe is getting together. Hopefully Bulgaria will join the E.U. soon.

We had a really nice time yesterday celebrating Queen's Day. We were in Amsterdam around 10:30 o'clock and Jelly, Daniël and I arrived at the same time as Steven. We met Kirsten and Rob a few minutes later.

The weather was excellent! I was walking in my (orange) T-shirt all day.

We made a long walk through the city, towards the Vondelpark. We were there around 13:00 o'clock, where we met Jerry and Marjolein. Together with Linda and Maya, two friends of Jelly we spent then a long time in the Vondelpark. Sitting on the grass, talking, drinking beer... it was very nice.

We had dinner in an Italian place, afterwards we had a few more drinks outside. A wonderful day; we were home around midnight.

We're leaving in 30 minutes to Amsterdam to celebrate Queen's Day.

We'll meet Jelly at the station in Haarlem, and Steven, Kirsten and Rob will be in Amsterdam. We always agree to meet at "the GWK", although that shop has been moved to a new location and we'll meet each other at the old spot where we've always met in the past.

I'm looking forward to go into Amsterdam. For a while I was considering bringing my camera but it's just too risky -- there are so many people and the chance that it gets damaged or lost is too big.

Tonight is the evening before Queen's Day, or Koninginnenacht. I was considering going to Amsterdam tonight, but the weather wasn't very pleasant. It doesn't really matter, as Daniël and I took a few beers and had dinner together which was a nice way to start the Queen's Day celebrations.

Tomorrow we will go to Amsterdam, and get jammed like sardines in the crowd.

There is a fair at the Grote Markt here in Haarlem. I just went for a walk through Haarlem.

It wasn't very busy in the city. A big light is inviting people to come to the fair.

Taking pictures at night from a quickly moving object is very difficult...

Fair at the Grote Markt in Haarlem 2004.

Ferry wheel in front of the Stadhuis.

The last few weeks I have been watching German television in the morning. We only have one German TV station at home, but it's ZDF which has a nice morning show: "ZDF Heute".

"Die Holländer haben es uns vorgemacht. So bereitet man sich vor auf die EM."

I lost count how many times I heard the
word "Blamage" this morning.